French Plea For U.S. Guarantee

Greymouth Evening Star, 26 February 1949, Page 5

French Plea For U.S. Guarantee

(Rec. 11.20 a.m.) PARIS, February 25.

In an interview with the British United Press correspondent, the Prime Minister, Dr Queuille, in an interview, said the United States must never allow France and Western Europe to be over-run by Russia, as they were by Germany.

The United States, he said, was the only Power capable of forestalling such a catastrophe. Dr Queuille said he did- not doubt that the United States would again come to France’s aid, even without a writtep treaty, “but that isn’t the question. France and the rest of Western Europe must be spared invasion. “If, as Thorez envisaged in his declarations, the Russians should cross the Rhine, the catastrophe would be all but complete. Communists, saboteurs and fifth columnists would seize control of the mechanism of government and the mass of the civilian population would be immobilised by fear and self-destruction. “We know that once Western Europe were so occupied, America would again come to our aid and eventually we would be liberated, but the process would be terrible next time,” he said. “You would probably be liberating a corpse and civilisation would probably be dead.” Invasion must be stopped before it could" get started. If a sufficient force could be counted on to prevent the Russian Army from moving beyond the Elbe, European civilisation could breathe again. “The real frontier of Western Europe, which must be defended,

must be moved well beyond the reach of the actual frontiers, because once the , geographical frontiers of these countries are crossed it will be too late for America to save very much,” he said. “Fifteen days after invasion it would be too late.” The correspondent says that Dr Queuille would not commit himself on whether this meant that France was seeking the creation and maintenance of an international force well within Germany while a guarantee against Russian invasion was necessary. According to a later message, the Associated Press correspondent says that the French Government is considering legal action against all 84 members of the French Communist Party’s Politbureau.